THE USE of Government jets by Ministers is “carefully controlled” and they are not being overused, Minister for Defence Tony Killeen said yesterday.
He was responding to new information which showed that the Government jet continued to be diverted to drop Ministers at airports closest to their homes.
The figures, released by the Department of Defence under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the practice has continued into 2010 but less frequently than in the past.
Mr Killeen said yesterday the jets had diverted to drop off, or pick up, Ministers, but only when meetings ran late or when Ministers’ schedules were tight.
Speaking on RTÉ radio he said dropping a Minister off at the nearest airport was “easily done” but conceded it came at “considerable cost”. The hourly cost of the Gulfstream jet is estimated at almost €8,000.
The figures show that Government jets landed in Cork eight times in 2010 to facilitate Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin and on a further occasion to drop off Minister for Enterprise Batt O’Keeffe.
Mr Killeen said Ministers were making increasing use of commercial flights to meet their commitments abroad and turning less and less to the Government jets.
He said the jets were used 126 times in 2009, compared to 266 times four years previously in 2005.
“So there’s been a halving of the number of uses of the jet so people at Government level are doing their best to use commercial flights where possible. But there are lots of instances where that is not possible.”
Mr Killeen cited European Council meetings in Brussels or Luxembourg which could continue until very late, long after the last scheduled flight had departed.
“It’s impossible to know what time a meeting will end. Sometimes they go through the night as I discovered on a few occasions and they generally run later than departure times for commercial flights,” he said.
Records obtained by The Irish Times last year showed that Government Ministers had taken 144 internal flights within the State over a 2½-year period between 2007 and 2009, at a total cost of €350,000 to the taxpayer.
Senior and junior Ministers have used both of the Government jets, Air Corps fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to travel within the State’s borders.
Mr Martin and Minister for Health Mary Harney had used the Government jets most frequently during that period. Ms Harney had used the Gulfstream and the Learjet 13 times for internal flights during that period to travel to Cork, Shannon, Kerry and Galway.
Mr Martin had used the Gulfstream once and Learjet six times, mostly to Cork, but also to Kerry and Shannon airports.
The group asked to identify public sector cuts, chaired by economist Colm McCarthy, recommended the commercial cost of Government aircraft be charged to departments as a means of discouraging excessive use of this form of air travel. The recommendation has not been implemented to date.
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey was criticised recently for using the Gulfstream IV jet from Dublin to Derry for a speaking engagement and on to London, at a cost €13,000. The Department of Transport said that by the time Mr Dempsey was free to fly to London, there was no commercial flight available.